After a two-month maybe-this-time-we’ll-do-better-and-change-and-make-it-work-honeymoon abroad, they come home to a dead fridge because someone had turned the fuse switch off before they left. Someone thought it would conserve energy. Someone says it was an honest mistake.
The plan had been to arrive to a freezer packed with select cuts of meat, to a homemade dish within easy defrost grasp, to the last slice of frozen gooseberry pie, to lighting fresh wild honey nectar candles while sinking into the deep sofa with the unfortunate grape juice stain.
Instead, they fill trash bags with containers of home-cooked meals decorated with entire forests of mold and meat congealed into putrid jelly. And even after the fridge is emptied and scoured with layers and layers of bleach, of vinegar-baking-powder-lemon-tears, they hold their breath, careful not to inhale the air souring every inch of their home.
